Tag Archives: M/M

The Cat & the Crow

Book Review The Cat & the Crow, by S.K. Hart

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The cat & the crow

During the last big clearance event I grabbed S. K. Hart‘s m/m romance, The Cat & the Crow, from Smashwords. 

Description from Goodreads:
A dark romance between two unlikely male characters. The recent death of Tarro’s wife was not only sudden, it was inconvenient. Being forced to mourn for a woman he never truly enjoyed, he accepts an offer for company that only ends up leading to more trouble. With a reputation for being able to ruin anything, he starts to wonder if he’s ruining his new house guest, or perhaps himself.

Review:
Before I even read the first page of this novel it had two important things going for it. I secretly love m/m stories and I am a closet manga addict, so the very yaoi-ish cover attracted me immediately. I am thrilled to say that it lived up to my expectations, exceeded them even. I read 90% of it with a ridiculous silly grin on my face, teared up more than once, had to get myself a quick glass of ice water and return to it again and again (whew), then eventually had to admit that the whole thing made my heart hurt. Tarro’s life isn’t an easy one to face. It is definitely cringeworthy. But every painful, horrible thing that happens in this book is made up for in the wonderful character that is Nerin. *swoon* Yes, he and Tarro have turned me into a sad little fangirl.

The book is told in first person, from the POV of Tarro. I’m not generally a fan of first person narratives, in fact I kind of hate them. But I have to admit I enjoyed it here. Tarro had such a fantastically sarcastic and jaded tone/voice that it was a pleasure to read. I also liked his blatant honesty, especially about himself and his own proclivities.

I read a lot. I write a lot of reviews. But I rarely rave. I rarely give unadulterated praise. But I am officially declaring myself an S. Hart fan. If you enjoy yaoi or M/M romances (and honestly I would only recommend this if you do) this is one worth picking up.

☆Here’s a hint too. If you check the book out on Smashwords you’ll find a little free extra story too. Tarro and Nerin do Christmas…and toys. 

Review of S.P. Wayne’s Winter Wolf

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Winter Wolf

I grabbed S.P. Wayne‘s M/M romance, Winter Wolf, from the Amazon KDP list.

I would usually include a description at this point, but Winter Wolf‘s is so long it’s practically a short story by itself. So feel free to go here and read it on its Amazon page. I’m not cluttering this post up with it. Seriously, it’s unnecessarily long. Suffice it to say the novella is a sweet werewolf romance with an M/M pairing.

Review:
I’m just going to go ahead and get the biggest criticism out of the way first so that I can spend the rest of this review raving about the book. Winter Wolf needs an editor fairly badly. There are missing and misused words, and though less frequent, grammar mistakes and typos too. Plus, POVs shift at a dizzying pace with little to no warning, so it can sometimes be a little hard to keep up. I have definitely seen worse and it’s not really too hard to figure out what the author actually means, so the text is still readable. But there are too many examples to not point out it in any complete review.

I wish I used star ratings on this blog so that I could say, ‘if it’s bad enough to warrant a mention I often would consider dropping a star for poor editing, but not this time.’  That’s such a simple way to make the point. It’s also true. The story and writing (editing aside) are just too wonderful for anything but 5 stars. Wayne’s style is surprisingly evocative. I actually felt Axton’s skittishness. I ground my teeth for his self denials and my heart ached for his ‘mourning’ periods. He felt incredibly fragile. I didn’t connect as fully with Leander, but the story is told largely from Axton’s POV. There are no other characters.

Axton was also simply a great character. He was noble, honourable, and utterly vulnerable without being wimpy in any way. I loved watching him flounder and then find his proverbial feet. It was nice to see him turn the werewolf genre on it’s hierarchical head. Axton was definitely a beta, or maybe even omega type wolf. There was nothing alpha about him and I don’t remember the last werewolf book I read that wasn’t about an alpha wolf.

This is a really bittersweet story, with a writing style that perfectly matches the characters it describes. I highly recommend it. There seems to be a sequel on the way and I’m a little torn about how to feel about that. So often I’ve continued a series and felt it would have been kinder to the characters to stop at the first one, but I’d also simply love to see more of Ax and Lee. No doubt I’ll read it.

Book Review of Christine d’Abo’s No Quarter

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No QuarterI’ve been on a real erotica and M/M kick lately so I grabbed Christine d’Abo‘s No Quarter from the Amazon KDP list. At the time of posting it was still free.

Description from Goodreads:
When bounty hunter Gar is given a simple locate-and-retrieve mission, he’s convinced it’s a waste of his skills. His success rate is legendary, and this assignment is almost too easy.

There isn’t a more prolific space pirate in the galaxy than Captain Faolan. When he walks into a bar with a proposition heavy in mind, he’s not expecting anything to go wrong.

Forced from his solitary existence to work with Faolan, Gar can’t deny his need and desire for a man who he should put in prison. When the hunter becomes the hunted, Gar must learn to put his faith in a man he doesn’t know, or run the risk of ending up dead.

Review:
Though I think it probably should have been titled No Quarters, this was an entertaining enough book. The sex was practically molten it was so hot. I mean like really smexy and there is a lot of it. I really liked both Gar and Faolan (much more in the beginning than in the end though). The plot was engaging and the writing fine.

But I also had a few issues with the story. To begin with there was the fairly drastic change in attitude that both men took in order to fall into each-others arms the first few times. One minute their at each-others throats, amped up and barley restraining themselves from murdering each-other, the next their having hot passionate sex. This I could buy (given the extenuating circumstances) except that they were suddenly tender, considerate lovers. I would have at least expected angry sex, but no, it was all soft embraces and ‘I’ll take care of you’. Then there was Mace. What are the chances of that happening? Realistically almost none, but paradoxically I also found it painfully predictable. The same could be said for the bad guy. Could he really have been responsible for ALL OF THAT?

This was a fairly erotic M/M read, but at it’s core it really is a romance. Two lonely, broken men find each-other and heal each-other’s wounds. I have to admit I preferred them hard and broken to romantic and fragile, but that’s just me really. I’m not a firm believer of the requisite HEA. As a Amazon freebie I was more than happy with it. I even considered getting the sequels, but their pricey for their length so I opted instead to see if they ever comes up for free.